No sooner had von der Leyen finished speaking than German Chancellor Friedrich Merz issued a statement saying that the EU and Canada were establishing an “Alliance for the Future” — without mentioning the associate member status. Germany has led the opposition to using the term, according to EU diplomats.
The Commission president said in her speech that talks about associate membership would focus on deeper cooperation across AI, climate and energy policy, as well as bolstering shared work between the European Commission and the Canadian government as well as “Parliament to Parliament” and “Court to Court,” a reference to the European Court of Justice and Canada’s Supreme Court.
Such a status, she said, would be open “only to our closest partners outside of Europe, who are ready to open a new frontier together — and to chart the course together, to think beyond the terms of our partnership today, toward the most ambitious vision we can build.”
Von der Leyen’s use of the term associate membership — which she first mentioned in September — is likely to rub some EU capitals the wrong way after a group of countries including France, Greece and Germany objected to including a reference to the term in a joint EU-Canada statement that was seen by POLITICO and is due to be published on Friday.
After days of talks, EU countries opted for softer language to describe the two sides’ future relations, including the “Alliance for the Future” — the term used by the Canadian side — as well as an “even closer association … short of full membership.”
EU diplomats have told POLITICO that while capitals support the broader aim of closer ties with Canada, they are wary of offering a status that has never been proposed before and whose legal contours remain undefined. Berlin had previously floated associate member status for Ukraine, including specific privileges such as observer status in the European Commission, but that effort was rejected.